Coneheads (1993) Paramount/Comedy RT: 87 minutes Rated PG (comic nudity, double entendres) Director: Steve Barron Screenplay: Tom Davis, Dan Aykroyd, Bonnie Turner and Terry Turner Music: David Newman Cinematography: Francis Kenny Release date: July 23, 1993 (US) Cast: Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtin, Michelle Burke, Michael McKean, David Spade, Chris Farley, Sinbad, Michael Richards, Eddie Griffin, Phil Hartman, Adam Sandler, Mitchell Bobrow, Jason Alexander, Lisa Jane Persky, Dave Thomas, Laraine Newman, Garrett Morris, Drew Carey, Kevin Nealon, Jan Hooks, Parker Posey, Joey Lauren Adams, Julia Sweeney, Ellen DeGeneres, Tim Meadows, Peter Aykroyd, Jonathan Penner, Whip Hubley, Jon Lovitz, Tom Arnold. Box Office: $21.3M (US)
Rating: ***
Bringing an SNL sketch to the big screen is tricky business. For every success like The Blues Brothers and Wayne’s World, there’s a failure like Superstar and It’s Pat. It’s not easy getting a feature length film out of material typically viewed in six-minute segments on a weekly late night comedy show. I had every reason to believe Coneheads would fail. The odds of it being any good were against it for the reasons given above. Also, it arrived about fifteen years too late to the party. The Coneheads, a family of aliens from the planet Remulak, identified by their cone-shaped craniums, were popular on SNL in the 70s! In 1993, it’s highly unlikely audiences would be interested in a movie based on characters not seen on SNL in more than a decade. And they weren’t. It bombed with a disappointing box office take of just over $21 million. HOWEVER, in my own opinion, it’s one of the better SNL-inspired comedies.
I saw Coneheads at an advance screening sponsored by one of the local rock stations. These events usually come with promotional items. Everybody received a rubber cone head as they entered. The theater was wall-to-wall Coneheads that night. Children, of which there were several, seemed especially amused. I silently wondered how many of the kids in attendance even knew about the Coneheads. This was before YouTube so unless their parents had old SNL episodes on tape, it’s doubtful they ever saw a single sketch.
Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin reprise their roles as Beldar and Prymaat Conehead, an alien couple trying to adapt to life on Earth. They get a backstory in Coneheads. While on a mission to conquer our planet, their spacecraft is shot down by the military. The stranded aliens attempt to fit in with the “blunt skulls” by setting up house in a trailer and Beldar getting a job as an appliance repairman. When his boss (comedian Sinbad) learns his star employee is an illegal alien, he arranges for bogus documentation which only alerts INS to his presence. Agent Seedling (McKean, This Is Spinal Tap) makes it a mission to capture the aliens. That is, until he gets promoted and leaves the case for the next agent. That leaves Beldar and a pregnant Prymaat free to settle in suburban New Jersey and raise a family.
After a home movie montage set to Paul Simon’s “Kodachrome”, Coneheads picks up several zurls (in Remulak, years) later with them trying to raise their teenage daughter Connie (Burke, Dazed and Confused) who only wants to fit in with her peers. Kind of hard to do when your head resembles an eggplant. Nobody seems to pay much notice so she’s got that going for her. One of the running jokes of the sketches was that nobody made a big deal about the Coneheads’ physical appearance. Anyway, things are already tense with her overprotective dad when she starts dating Ronnie (Farley, Tommy Boy), an auto mechanic with only one thing on his mind and it isn’t carburetors. He doesn’t take kindly to some “flarndip” touching his little girl’s cone.
Meanwhile, Seedling resumes his investigation of the Coneheads when another promotion is held up until he closes the case. Shortly thereafter, Beldar gets word that a rescue vessel is finally being sent to take him and his family back to their home planet. Naturally, Connie doesn’t want to leave; she likes it on Earth. What’s a parental unit to do?
Directed by Steve Barron (Electric Dreams, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), Coneheads is funnier than you might expect. Some have described it as a one-joke movie which I suppose is somewhat accurate, but since the joke is funny it gets a pass. In the sketches, Beldar and Prymaat did little more than stand around with their big bald pointy heads and spoke in a robotic monotone. The way they say things was funny.
They were extremely literal and precise. They referred to eating as “consuming mass quantities” and when upset would say “Mebs!” which I guess is a Remulak expletive of some kind. Sex for Coneheads involves tossing rings onto each other’s skulls. They do basically the same stuff in the movie which is fine since that’s what the fans want. The good thing is that it’s accompanied by more than a bare bones plot. The climax on their home planet where Beldar fights a monster called a “Garthok” is cool. The special effects are surprisingly good.
Coneheads is as much a gathering of SNL cast members old and new as it is a comedy. They show up in supporting roles and cameos. David Spade plays Seedling’s sycophant assistant. Adam Sandler is the document forger. Jan Hooks plays a driving student hot for her driving instructor- i.e. Beldar. Julia Sweeney (aka Pat) is the school principal. Phil Hartman, Laraine Newman and Garrett Morris are fellow Coneheads. It’s fun playing spot the SNL player.
Aykroyd and Curtin look like they’re having fun returning to the characters that made them a hit on SNL. Burke, taking over the role played by Laraine Newman on the show, is good in her big screen debut. While Coneheads may not be in the same league as Blues Brothers and Wayne’s World, it’s still a hell of a lot better than the unfunny crapfests that followed. These characters have more of a right to the big screen treatment than Mary Katherine Gallagher, Stuart Smalley or Pat which I HATE with a passion. I wish it had done better. Connie going to college would have been interesting. I can see Beldar pulling her out of a wild frat party, can you?
